(AKI/Asian Age) - The separatist rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have accused the Sri Lankan military of abusing the conventions relating to the treatment of the war-dead by parading the naked bodies of the 21 of their fighters killed during the rebels' pre-dawn attack on the Anuradhapura airbase on Monday. There were three women rebel fighters among the suicide attack forces of the LTTE, known as the Black Tigers. The rebel groups sent emails petitioning the United Nations over the matter. Independent media reports, backed by gruesome photographs taken on site, said the Sri Lankan troops on Tuesday paraded the naked bodies of the Tamil Tiger commandos killed in their attack on the key northern airbase. The reports said that the army had stripped the bodies of the Black Tigers before putting them on display for the mainly Sinhalese residents near the Anuradhapura airbase. A large crowd of locals, mostly Sinhalese residents, gathered to look at the naked corpses and mutilated body parts loaded in trailers pulled by two farm tractors to the hospital mortuary. Some people even took pictures and a few others filmed the gory scene, reports said.
Faced with widespread criticism, the military has now denied humiliating the dead and argued it became necessary to strip the Black Tigers for any "hidden suicide devices" under their jungle fatigues. While it claimed that the bodies were wrapped in black polythene bags, photographs of the trailer packed with naked bodies and a huge gathering of residents watching in the rain, proved otherwise. The military also said the bodies had been since buried.